CHILLICOTHE – Food trucks are all the rage in big cities and on reality television, but they are few and far between in small-town southern Ohio.

In Chillicothe, however, entrepreneur Kari Cruse is making a go of it with Fat Cat Food Truck — a restaurant on wheels that officially opened Tuesday after a soft launch this past week.

“I always dreamed of having a food truck,” said Cruse, a native of Frankfort. “I worked in food service for about 16 years, mainly as a waitress and bartender, and I thought it would be cool to choose where you go every day and see different people.”

Parked on West Main Street, just outside of the Ross County Courthouse, the truck served a steady crowd of customers Tuesday, many of whom were curious about the new addition to the downtown lunch scene. Cruse took customers’ orders while chef Charley Curtis and line cook Zachary Scott made the food.

“Overall, we did pretty well. A lot of it is getting used to the truck,” Cruse said. “We forgot to put salt on the fries a couple of times, but we’ll get better. Sometimes you just have to wing it.”

Fat Cat serves burgers and hand-breaded pork tenderloin, chicken and fish sandwiches. Each one comes with a side of beer-battered french fries. The menu likely will expand to include healthier options, such as salads and wraps, Cruse said.

Customers already are requesting breakfast, she said.

Curtis also considers himself a veteran of the food service industry, having spent much of his life in restaurant kitchens. He was in the fifth grade when he got his start in his mother’s restaurant, the Cavalier Sandwich Shop. Some of the sandwiches Fat Cat serves are prepared the same way his mom made them, he said.

The food is made to order in a mobile kitchen that’s not unlike a typical cooking line in a restaurant, Cruse said. The truck boasts a flat-top griddle with six burners, a separate gas-powered cooktop, a broiler, a fryer, two ovens, a stand-up refrigerator, a stand-up freezer, a bun warmer, a prep table, a sink, a beverage cooler and a ventilation system.

It was just an empty box truck when Cruse bought it. She worked with All a Cart in Columbus to turn it into a food truck.

“Everything is restaurant-grade. It’s just like a commercial kitchen, but on wheels,” Cruse said. “We knew what we wanted — a truck that can do just about anything. If we need to cater, we can. This truck could park in a field and (using the on-board generator) run for two days straight.”

Zach James, owner of the Columbus-based Paddy Wagon food truck and a member of the Central Ohio Food Truck Association, said he operated his truck for four months in his hometown of Zanesville, which is roughly the same size as Chillicothe.

“I did a little bit of business, maybe a couple hundred bucks a day,” James said. “I’d say there’s some potential in (operating a food truck in a small town). How much? I don’t know.”

Although food trucks have gained exposure and popularity in recent years, James said their owners are “still shaking off the stigma of the ‘roach coach’ and the ‘lunch wagon,’” even in Columbus.

On Thursday, Fat Cat served lunch and dinner at YSK Corp. It will travel to Jackson today. Cruse said she hopes to have it at the Ross County Fair and the Easyriders Rodeo.

For the foreseeable future, Fat Cat will be downtown — near the courthouse — for lunch on Tuesdays, she said. The truck’s schedule can be found by searching “Fat Cat Food Truck” on Facebook.

The use of social media is crucial in the food truck business because it allows the owner to notify customers of the truck’s location each day, James said.

“If there’s a shred of doubt (about the truck being there), people will go somewhere else,” he said.